Monday, August 02, 2004
"If the Election Were Held Today..."
We will be hearing this phrase a lot in the coming weeks. Our answers will depend on who do we love, who do we trust, or who is the lesser of two evils.
Myself, I am pining for a viable third party. The Republicans started one in the mid 1800's to oppose the Democrats and the Whigs. They were a third party created as a two-issue party–that being to abolish slavery and to open up the western states as free lands. Their first national winning candidate happened to be Abraham Lincoln. But soon the Republicans, being made up of typical Americans, evolved into a mainstream party of many issues and lots and lots of politics and compromises and buy-outs. That is what we Americans do.
We adapt anything into the mainstream of society. No matter how hard one may try to rebel, we just suck'em in and make 'em a part of us. Like the poem:
"He drew a circle to keep us out. . . But Love & I had the wit to win; We drew a circle that took him in." That is how a Viet Nam Vet Against the War can go from burning his ribbons and demonstrating against The Establishment to running for president. The Hippies have been incorporated into government jobs. The Black Panthers are in business suits. The Women Libbers are cooing over grand babies.
Since I can't find a viable Third Party for 2004, I am forced to study the two-party issues.
For example, John Kerry's recent promises to open up stem cell research.
Bush put restrictions on the government funding of stem cell research because it is, as are so many things, a "slippery slope". He fears it may lead to embryo farms, cloned babies, and fetuses grown for the harvest. And don't you dare think atrocities would never occur after what doctors and scientists did in the free for all of Hitler's Nazi Germany.
The Pope is against it (something about massacre of innocents), but he is also against birth control pills, in-vitro fertilizations, all of it.
Take an infertile couple wishing to have a baby. The in-vitro fertility clinic takes some of the woman's eggs and the man’s sperm and fertilizes the eggs artificially (outside the woman's body). This is opposite of birth control pills which were created to prevent the production of most eggs and prevent the uterus from accepting the fertilized embryos if any are conceived.
In the "test tubes" cells split and grow for about 3-5 days into about 150 cells which you can call an embryo or a blastocyst. The healthy embryo is implanted into the woman's womb and abracadabra-please-and-thank-you, you get pregnancy in an infertile womb. Well, its not really that easy. It is painful, it's expensive, it takes several tries, and sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
The debate now emerges. What do you do with the embryos that have not been implanted? They may be frozen for future use, adopted by other infertile couples, disposed of, or (in a John Kerry World) sent to the research lab where the stem cells are pulled out and studied, experimented with, used for stuff. Stuff like finding cures for Diabetes, Parkinson, Alzheimer, Spinal Cord injury, Liver disease, etc, etc, etc.
Those 150-cell blastocyst embryos may be the perfect cells to regrow diseased cells. They have not yet developed (or differentiated) into specific function cells. So they can be coaxed into blood cells, brain cells, spinal cord cells, pancreas cells, neural cells, limitless possibilities. And this may be the important point: They have not yet been differentiated.
They are not nerves, nor muscle, nor tissue, nor fluid cells. They are blank cells.
Adult stem cells have been used for over 30 years. Doctors have been using the stem cells from bone marrow to help patients with blood disease. Adult stem cells from umbilical cords, placental tissue, etc. Unfortunately, adult stem cells are limited and can’t be differentiated into most kinds of cells whereas the embryo stem cells can become any kind of cell.
President Bush restricted the federal funds to embryo stem cell research to the lines of embryo stem cells already in existence as of August of 2001. He said "We do not end some lives for the medical benefit of others. . . a belief that life, including early life, is biologically human, genetically distinct and valuable."
Let's think about The moment of Differentiation -- when blank cells become human cells with human functions. Not a bad idea: define the moment of human life at the point when the cells have specific function. Oh, I like this idea. Wish it was mine but it is Carrie Addis's idea.
Since we don't bury or grieve for 3-5 day old embryos, usually we don't even know we conceived or aborted at this point, it may be a great place to start. I know I have somehow grown to believe in birth control pills. I don't have a problem with stopping the possibility of a future life that has not yet been conceived. And I have grown to put up with the making of the uterus unattractive for an embryo. This may be the beginning of an answer.
We will be hearing this phrase a lot in the coming weeks. Our answers will depend on who do we love, who do we trust, or who is the lesser of two evils.
Myself, I am pining for a viable third party. The Republicans started one in the mid 1800's to oppose the Democrats and the Whigs. They were a third party created as a two-issue party–that being to abolish slavery and to open up the western states as free lands. Their first national winning candidate happened to be Abraham Lincoln. But soon the Republicans, being made up of typical Americans, evolved into a mainstream party of many issues and lots and lots of politics and compromises and buy-outs. That is what we Americans do.
We adapt anything into the mainstream of society. No matter how hard one may try to rebel, we just suck'em in and make 'em a part of us. Like the poem:
"He drew a circle to keep us out. . . But Love & I had the wit to win; We drew a circle that took him in." That is how a Viet Nam Vet Against the War can go from burning his ribbons and demonstrating against The Establishment to running for president. The Hippies have been incorporated into government jobs. The Black Panthers are in business suits. The Women Libbers are cooing over grand babies.
Since I can't find a viable Third Party for 2004, I am forced to study the two-party issues.
For example, John Kerry's recent promises to open up stem cell research.
Bush put restrictions on the government funding of stem cell research because it is, as are so many things, a "slippery slope". He fears it may lead to embryo farms, cloned babies, and fetuses grown for the harvest. And don't you dare think atrocities would never occur after what doctors and scientists did in the free for all of Hitler's Nazi Germany.
The Pope is against it (something about massacre of innocents), but he is also against birth control pills, in-vitro fertilizations, all of it.
Take an infertile couple wishing to have a baby. The in-vitro fertility clinic takes some of the woman's eggs and the man’s sperm and fertilizes the eggs artificially (outside the woman's body). This is opposite of birth control pills which were created to prevent the production of most eggs and prevent the uterus from accepting the fertilized embryos if any are conceived.
In the "test tubes" cells split and grow for about 3-5 days into about 150 cells which you can call an embryo or a blastocyst. The healthy embryo is implanted into the woman's womb and abracadabra-please-and-thank-you, you get pregnancy in an infertile womb. Well, its not really that easy. It is painful, it's expensive, it takes several tries, and sometimes it doesn’t work at all.
The debate now emerges. What do you do with the embryos that have not been implanted? They may be frozen for future use, adopted by other infertile couples, disposed of, or (in a John Kerry World) sent to the research lab where the stem cells are pulled out and studied, experimented with, used for stuff. Stuff like finding cures for Diabetes, Parkinson, Alzheimer, Spinal Cord injury, Liver disease, etc, etc, etc.
Those 150-cell blastocyst embryos may be the perfect cells to regrow diseased cells. They have not yet developed (or differentiated) into specific function cells. So they can be coaxed into blood cells, brain cells, spinal cord cells, pancreas cells, neural cells, limitless possibilities. And this may be the important point: They have not yet been differentiated.
They are not nerves, nor muscle, nor tissue, nor fluid cells. They are blank cells.
Adult stem cells have been used for over 30 years. Doctors have been using the stem cells from bone marrow to help patients with blood disease. Adult stem cells from umbilical cords, placental tissue, etc. Unfortunately, adult stem cells are limited and can’t be differentiated into most kinds of cells whereas the embryo stem cells can become any kind of cell.
President Bush restricted the federal funds to embryo stem cell research to the lines of embryo stem cells already in existence as of August of 2001. He said "We do not end some lives for the medical benefit of others. . . a belief that life, including early life, is biologically human, genetically distinct and valuable."
Let's think about The moment of Differentiation -- when blank cells become human cells with human functions. Not a bad idea: define the moment of human life at the point when the cells have specific function. Oh, I like this idea. Wish it was mine but it is Carrie Addis's idea.
Since we don't bury or grieve for 3-5 day old embryos, usually we don't even know we conceived or aborted at this point, it may be a great place to start. I know I have somehow grown to believe in birth control pills. I don't have a problem with stopping the possibility of a future life that has not yet been conceived. And I have grown to put up with the making of the uterus unattractive for an embryo. This may be the beginning of an answer.
